Go to What I SHOULD Have Said... main page
Here is one story retold,
albeit with a pithier ending:
From BadDriver:
Comparing Records
What happened: I was going to a graduation party at a friends home. I arrived, and saw that about 10 other poeple there already. I walked into the kitchen, where everybody was. One of my friends happened to be telling a story about me. He didn't see me, though everybody else did. He was telling a story about how I was unsure about the speed I was going through a town, having driven through it the first time, and kept asking him for advice on the speed. He was really being dispariging about it. As he was getting to the height of the story, his girlfriend interrupted and told him that I was right behind him
What I said: Hey man, WHAT'S up.
What I SHOULD have said: Oh, go ahead with your story, man. But, oh, HEY! first, let's compare our driving records. Let's see, you've got what two, no..three tickets from the police, costing your parents hundreds of dollars and a loss of your license. You've crashed more than four times, causing serious damage to your father's truck, chipping your tooth, trashing the transmission on your mother's van, and breaking a friends guitar. But yeah, I've gotten a verbal warning from the police myself, so that's where we stand. Go ahead, go on, finish with your story, dude.
L'esprit d'escalier
The French call it l'esprit d'escalier, "the wit of the staircase," those biting ripostes that are thought of just seconds too late, on the way out of the room-or even, to tell the truth, days later. It's happened to you: you've suddenly thought of just what would put your foe in his or her place, but past the time when the arrow could sting its victim. You've stewed in your own juice ever since, and the chance for singeing repartee is gone forever.
Or is it?
Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde may have had the rapier wit to tweak their tormentors on the spot, but for the rest of us, we offer the Internet's only L'esprit d'escalier web site!
